Garbage Plan Worries Workers

Hampton Seeking Private Contractors For Trash Collection

HAMPTON — "Garbage is serious business," says a stern-faced Otis Dabney. And then he smiles.

The 43-year-old father of one has been a garbage collector with the city for six years, and that's something to smile about.

It has been a good, stable job, he says. He's been able to buy his own home on the salary - garbage collectors make between $12,490 and $18,750 a year.

And the health, vacation and sick leave benefits are better than any he has ever had.

"You can't eat benefits, but you can't beat them," he says.

But Dabney and the city's approximately 60 other garbage collectors, who make pickups at 38,000 households twice a week, have been worried about their job security since the city manager made public a plan to find a private contractor to take over trash collection in half of the city.

"A lot of people are concerned about it," said Melvin Triplett, who has been a garbage collector with the city for nine years. "They don't know who's going to get to stay."

The plan, which is intended to reduce the nearly $3 million cost of garbage collection, must be adopted by the City Council before it goes into effect.

City Manager Robert J. O'Neill Jr. announced the plan as part of a series of proposals designed to address some of the city's more overwhelming problems, including public drainage, health care for the indigent and garbage dis posal.

The plan also calls for implementing user-fees of about $100 per year for the average homeowner to have trash pickup. Household garbage collection is currently financed by real estate taxes.

The council has been lukewarm in its support of the plan.

A number of council members have said the fees would only be implemented if the real estate tax rate were significantly cut. Others have said the user-fee concept will require much discussion before it is adopted.

Councilman C. Edward Knight III said he is wary of turning over collection to a private firm. Competition might make the initial cost lower for the city, but he fears that one day the private firm would be able to demand the price it wants.

A private contractor might be able to cut the city's trash collection costs because contractors are not required to provide the same range of benefits as the city, explained Acting Public Works Director Ed Panzer.

"He has more flexibility than we do," Panzer said of contractors.

When the city finds a contractor, it will require the contractor to give city workers the first job offers, Panzer said.

The city's garbage collectors have been told that if the plan is adopted they would be given the option of taking a job with one of the contractors or applying for another job with the city.

The budget will be made public April 10 and a public hearing on the spending proposal is scheduled for April 26.

Neither Panzer nor O'Neill would rule out the possibility that some of the men with the least seniority might be forced to take the job with the private contractors.

But O'Neill said it is not likely that the number of collectors would be cut in half, even though their routes would be.

Some of the workers would be able to get jobs in the pilot recycling program the city will begin this year, he said.

Some of the younger workers might even want to leave for the slightly higher paying jobs with the private contractors since they might not need the protection of the benefits desired by older workers, O'Neill said.

Charles Branch, a 38-year-old family man who has been with the city for three years, said he knows he wouldn't want to leave the city.

He said the benefits are the best he has ever had and, "It's the only exercise I get."

"I don't think it's a good idea," he said. "I just hope I get to stay."